Standing at the Beginning of the End
by J. Maria
Summary: Is she a replacement for Dawn? Is the Doctor tired of her already?  Part Three of the 'Nine's First Fallen Companion' series.


Title: Standing at the Beginning of the End  
Author: Jmaria  
Rating: FR-13  
Disclaimer: Joss owns Buffyverse, Davies owns the newest bits (DW, TW) of the Whoverse  
Spoilers: Post Chosen, set during Rose and The End of the World  
Characters: Dawn Summers, Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler  
Summary: Is she a replacement for Dawn? Is the Doctor tired of her already?  
Words: 1147  
A/N: Prequel the second to _To Save a Life_

**__**

Standing at the Beginning of the End

Dawn slapped her cell phone shut. Buffy had been in a right mood all day. First the random attacks of shop dummies on the innocent citizens of London and then Dawn's insistent demand that she rush out into the night to find him. Her Doctor. He'd warned her that her skipping off to help her sister was just a ruse and would bring nothing good with it, but she'd gone off anyway. Buffy was her blood. She couldn't not go help her sister. Even if it had been a ruse like the Doctor had said it was.

She felt the pull of the TARDIS in her skin as she hustled down the street to the predestined meeting place they'd picked out. The familiar rumbling tumbling sound hit her ears and she ran faster. Three days without her Doctor and the world had almost gone to hell. Honestly, she couldn't trust him alone.

She dipped her hand under the collar of her t-shirt and tugged the chain out, her fingers on her key. Her hand was still hovering over the lock as the door to the TARDIS was yanked open. The Doctor gave her one of his goofy grins before grabbing her hand and pulling her inside.

"C'mon, we haven't got all the time in the world you know," he laughed.

"Funny, I thought we did, Doctor," Dawn sighed, tossing her bag down just inside the door as he raced back to the controls. "What's the rush?"

"Gotta save a girl from a life of terrible boredom. You'll like her," the Doctor answered, starting up the TARDIS again.

"I was gone for three days and you picked up a new girl?" Dawn frowned, shaking her head in confusion. "Why?"

"Cause she's so like you, and you were admitting not three days ago that it'd be fun to have someone to share it with."

"I have you, Doctor. And since when do you go about picking up strange girls?" There was a tinge of hurt in her voice, and it bothered her that it bothered her so very much. The Doctor wasn't her sole property. Just like she wasn't his. There could be and were other people in their lives besides each other.

"Since before I met you," the Doctor answered, his hands flying over the controls. "Go store your things and check the internal feed if you want to learn up on her."

"In the three seconds it'll take for you to make a dramatic entrance?" Dawn scoffed, trying to let her silly fears go. The Doctor wasn't trying to replace her. He was trying to make her feel more at home. By bringing strange girls who were roughly her age and teaching them about alien civilization. No, she'd never been down this road before. "You're just gonna try and impress her with your other-worldliness."

"Worked on you, didn't it?"

"Yeah, but I'm easy that way."

Dawn hurriedly ran to her room in the TARDIS, her eyes not deceiving her when she saw that a new door had been propped open just across from hers. The TARDIS had already given the new girl a room? Was the Doctor planning on replacing her already? No. He couldn't do that. She hurried into her room, tossing the bag on her bed. The one small screen in her room showed a young woman about her age run into the TARDIS, back out, and back in again.

That wasn't much to go by, other than the obvious quick recovery time she had to being confronted with the Doctor and his alien technology. You had to give her that. Not many would have responded that way. Most who ran in, ran back out again and never came back.

Dawn sighed as she felt the TARDIS powering up again. She ran her fingers over door of her room. The Doctor made good choices in his girls, all three of them. The TARDIS, her and this new girl, whoever she was. She hurried back down the corridor back to the main room. The Doctor was standing in the doorway looking out and talking to someone.

"By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?" He called out to the new girl.

Dawn couldn't hear what the girl said after that, so she leaned against the TARDIS control station and waited. A blonde girl burst into the room, an excited grin on her face as the Doctor shut the door behind her and made his way to the controls. The look of excitement quickly turned to confusion as she spied Dawn in the room.

"Do you want to go forwards or backwards in time, then?" the Doctor asked.

"Who is she then?" the girl asked, pointing at Dawn.

"That's Dawn, she's my companion," the Doctor shrugged. "Now, backwards or forwards?"

"Is she like your girlfriend, is she an alien like you?"

"She is not the Doctor's girlfriend, and she's quite capable of answering your question, just as soon as you answer his," Dawn smiled.

"Forwards, then," she said, before turning back to Dawn, eyebrow cocked. "Well?"

"I'm not an alien, just a normal girl like you - what's your name again?"

"Rose Tyler." Rose stuck out her hand in greeting, and Dawn shook it.

"Dawn Summers."

"You're American."

"I live in London when I'm not traveling with the Doctor," she shrugged.

"Where were you when he was destroying the shop-window dummies?" Rose nodded over to the Doctor.

"Trying to stop them with my sister."

"Now there is one who likes to get her nose in matters that aren't any of her business," The Doctor rolled his eyes at the mention of Buffy.

"Hey, just because you don't like being domestic doesn't mean you can take cracks at it," Dawn stuck out her tongue at him.

"There she goes, behaving like a childish ape."

"And there he goes, acting like he knows everything."

"I do know everything," the Doctor smirked. "Right then, forwards in time. How far do you wanna go?"

"I dunno, a hundred years?"

"Right then," The Doctors hands raced over the controls, spinning, twisting, pumping and pulling the various knobs and thingamabobs.

Dawn smiled as the TARDIS began to rumble. Even as she welcomed the tingle that shook her to her core and made her slightly dizzy.

"Yeah right," Rose scoffed.

"Oh, not long enough for you?" The Doctor's hands raced over the controls. Dawn knew that gleam in his eyes far too well. The Doctor was trying to impress Miss Rose Tyler. He'd tried to impress her as well, once upon a time. And he had.

"Is it ever?" Dawn joked, her eyes shining with some unprovoked thoughts. "C'mon, Doctor, let's give her the works."

Dawn smiled at the by-play between the two of them, wondering what mischief the Doctor was going to land them in this time. How was she to know then that the beginning of the end would start with a laugh and not a whimper?


End file.
